[Kraellin]

jllinko, welcome to RetouchPRO.

i've been watching this thread a bit and i find one thing missing in all of this; you didnt restore before you colored. now, that's not absolutely essential in all cases, but on this image there are a great number of problems that need fixing and those shld be handled first. there may be a few pros who can fix and color, fix while they color, but i'm guessing those are a rare few. for the rest of us, it's better to fix, then color. you actually didnt do that badly on your first attempt up there in post #1, but it looks like you missed one very important step: FIND THE IMAGE.

by 'find the image', i mean simply that one has to bring out what is there before one begins to clone, alter, color, and so on. if you dont know what's there, how you gonna fix anything?

ok, there are two main problems here, the over-exposed whitish spot and all the trash/noise/specs and such around the image. the noise can wait. let's find the image and that means that whitish area on the gentleman's right (our left).

so, here's my steps to date:

1. hue/sat adjustment layer--- desaturate image completely.

2. copy merge and paste to new layer.

3. histogram adjustment on that new layer.

4. made a selection of the gentleman and area to his right (but not his head).

5. contrast/brightness adjustment layer to LOWER brightness and contrast. by lowering the contrast you reduce the brightness of the overall and blend the luminance more evenly.

6. fade correction on selection

7. clarify, full strength, on selection.

8. HMS on selection.

and that was it, other than having to resize after all that to be able to post here in the forums.

[Kraellin]

notice there is now more detail in his suit. notice also that some is completely lost and just wasnt there to begin with. that will have to be reconstructed. notice the ground where i didnt blend the selection with the normal image. that can be corrected later. the whole idea is to find what's there first and then fix what you find.

[jllinko]

Kraellin,

I didnt think his right arm was correct, now I can see it, amazing. You give me hope I can better this picture. Thank you

Link

[Kraellin]

you're welcome

[jllinko]

Kraellin,

Steps 1-3 seem to be the only steps needed for the entire picture except the gentleman and to his right, the faded area. I cant seem to get the highlghts in the womens cheeks, nose and forehead, without brightening the entire picture. I think you are using Paint Shop Pro terms, so I'm not sure I'm doing it correctly.

Here is what I did.

1. Made a new hue/sat layer, slide sat slider all the way to the left.
2. select all, copy merged, paste
3. Then you say "histogram adjustment on that new layer", do you mean a levels adjustment? Thats what I did, adjusting each channel, sliding the left and right sliders to where graph begins to rise.

Her cheeks just dont have the highlights, much more even tone on her whole face. Any advise?

For the rest of the picture,

4. Understand.
5. Understand.
6. Fade, clarify, and HMS? Researched but having trouble finding for sure the photoshop equivalents. Could you help?

I really appreciate your assistance,

Link

[Kraellin]

no on the levels. a histogram adjustment is quite different. i've posted an image. i'm pretty sure photoshop has this also.

fade and clarify may be paint shop pro only. the HMS is 'highlights/midtones/shadows'... or is it the other way around, SMH ? and i'm pretty sure Photoshop has this also, since i recall flora mentioning this often. that will somewhat handle the 'clarify'. fade, i'm not sure what would replace that one. it sort of contrasts while correcting for faded images (or making them faded if you go the other way). you could try a curves, perhaps.

edit: ok, and here's the histo adjust in use: (2nd image)

[jllinko]

Kraelinn,

Thanks for your reply, I'll keep plodding along.
I may never get this picture to it's potential, but I'm learning.

Link

[Kraellin]

well, do understand that you've picked a very difficult image to break into restoration with. so, bear that in mind when it comes to the frustration factor

[laura.lala]

I liked so much the photo you posted that I couldn't help not to try to work on it. It took me some time me to try to restore it. I'm still not satisfied because I couldn't deal with the background and I decided to change it. Perhaps I exaggerated a bit, but these are my results. I would like to hear your suggestions and comments.

Sepia version

http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...ol_sm_done.png

Colored photo

http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...al02_sepia.png

[jllinko]

laura.lala

Thank you so much, I really like it a lot. Colors are beautiful, and I like the tan background. I like the sepia equally as well. Both are Very Nice! Thanks, I really, really appreciate it.

The only thing that I would say thats off a bit is his face. I believe you missed some of his right ear and hair, his right ear needs to stick out more (trust me, I have his Obama like ears). And I believe his chin/jaw is a little to hard, to square.

Other than that, great job, thank you very much, you are very talented.

Link

[TommyO]

Hey Link,
I thought you may also be interested in two other techniques which are in line with Craig's suggestions for revealing more image information before beginning the restoration. I agree with that suggestion by the way. The normal restoration workflow would always start with correcting exposure and tonality before cloning, healing, patching, etc. Coloring is basically last.

Anyway, the techniques are not new, but simply have not been mentioned. They work well in pulling out what little detail may be present. However, they cannot pull out detail from solid white areas.

Method One:
First start by examining the three channels to see which contains the most detail for the area that seems lost. In this case the Blue channel contains the most detail on the left edge.

Add a Channel Mixer layer, click on "monochrome", then mix more of the blue channel in and subtract a bit of the red and greens. This simply saturates the left edge with more of the blue channel. Then, invert the layer mask to all black. This will undo the effect. Then, using the Gradiant Tool set to linear and foreground-to-transparent, paint over the left edge with white to reveal the effect only on the left edge. You may have to duplicate this layer up to five or more times before you reveal the detail you need. But, that is ok since there is not much overhead with copying an adjustment layer.

Method Two:
Next, do something similar. Examine the channels... with the same result as above.

This time merge your layers up to a work in progress layer (ctrl-alt-shft-e). (This is important, as the layer will be altered permanently.) Then click on Image... Apply Image... Layer set to "merged", Channel set to "blue", Blending to "multiply", then click on Ok. The overall image will be too dark. Add a layer mask, invert it to black, then use the Gradiant Tool just as above. Paint white from the left edge to about the middle of the mans suit. This will enhance the left edge detail only. You can do this over and over until you build enough detail to match the rest of the image. You can adjust the opacity of the final layer to get the blend just right.

Generally, the image may be a bit dark at this point. You can now use other techniques to mask and adjust contrast of the people or background to your liking.

Below is the image I ended up with after a few steps like the above. There is quite a bit of detail revealed to the left of the man. Again, I was not as interested in getting the other areas a bit too dark for now, just revealing detail in the left edge area. It can now be selectively adjusted using masks and curves, or dodging techniques prior to any cloning, healing or coloring.

Hope this helps also. Good luck and continue posting.

[laura.lala]

Originally Posted by jllinko

laura.lala
...

The only thing that I would say thats off a bit is his face. I believe you missed some of his right ear and hair, his right ear needs to stick out more (trust me, I have his Obama like ears). And I believe his chin/jaw is a little to hard, to square.

Other than that, great job, thank you very much, you are very talented.

Link

Thank you for your compliments, I'm glad you liked my work.
After reading your post I went back to the original photo and I saw you are absolutely right about the ear. I missed that detail. I'm going to try to correct the ear and the jaw line.

It's a pitty I've read only today TommyO's post about revealing more information from the original photo before starting the clone, pach, healing brush restorations. That would helped me a lot.

[laura.lala]

Originally Posted by TommyO

Hey Link,
I thought you may also be interested in two other techniques which are in line with Craig's suggestions for revealing more image information before beginning the restoration. I agree with that suggestion by the way. The normal restoration workflow would always start with correcting exposure and tonality before cloning, healing, patching, etc. Coloring is basically last.
...

Thank you for posting these two techniques. Sometimes the original photos "hide" important details that can be revealed before starting the laborious work to correct the imperfections and restore it.
I'm going to try them on the next photos I planned to restore.

[jllinko]

TommyO,

I appreciate your input. I've looked at this picture a long time, and your results revealed some detail that I wasnt sure about. Thanks.

Sometimes I feel like giving up with photoshop, but your help and everyone else's keep me going.

Thanks again,

Link